I showed this to my wife, and mentioned that at 22, just out of College and ready for aimlessness after 4 years of regimented studies, going from Hooverville to Hooverville would have been one hell of an adventure. I was gently reminded that this might be one of those times when my empathy is lacking, but still.......

There are far more dispossessed people than the media and powers that be let on. Even though thousands flout foreclosure and stay in their homes long after they have stopped paying, there are those that cant or wont go to public housing. There is(or maybe was) one of these encampments about 25 miles from me. You may have one close to you and not know it.

In the Depression tent and shanty towns sprung up, and became known as Hoovervilles, after Herbert Hoover. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoovervilles
As stated , they are again springing up, even in the midst of this rip roaring recovery in the Barack Hussein Economy.

Meg follows up on a viewer tip about “the people of the woods”. This is a community of people in Browns Mills, New Jersey where some have lived deep in the woods for as long as 20 years. Meg had to first gain the people’s trust before they would take her on a tour of their community among the trees.

She first heard about this group of people from volunteers at the Christian Caring Center which often helps with food and services for the homeless. One volunteer tells Meg that on average, the cost of a single homeless person to taxpayers is about $14,480 per year.

The people in this community don’t have many other options. Most of them are unemployed and Burlington County doesn’t offer homeless shelters to help get them out of the woods.

After talking to many of the residents of this community, Meg discovered that most of these people are just down on their luck. They can’t afford to pay rent or live on their own and many feel they are forced to be there.

Back in the studio the chasers discuss ways that the local towns and the state can help these people. The focus was on the need for job creation and shelters to help get these people back on their feet.

A New Jersey Fox News television affiliate has been prowling the State in recent weeks, acting on viewer tips directing them to communities of homeless people living in tents, under overpasses, or – as seen in the video below – in makeshift shelters and abandoned buildings left to rot in the woods.

Many residents of these modern-day Hoovervilles are honest about their addictions to whatever substances they can beg or steal. But, notes Baker, many also are just down on their luck. Some have jobs that don’t pay enough for housing; others are disabled and on some form of government assistance. Others haven’t been able to convince potential employers to take a chance on someone who doesn’t have an address.

Fairly or unfairly, critics of Governor Chris Christie have taken to calling the State’s tent communities “Christievilles.”

“Perhaps Governor Christie should stop worrying so much about the thought process of libertarians, and more on the squalor rampant in his own state,” writes libertarian blogger Michael Krieger. “Strange that these tent cities seem to be spreading in a state right across the way from Wall Street, and with the nation supposedly almost five years into an economic ‘recovery.’ I guess somebody forgot to tell them about the S&P 500.”

__________________If you surrender a civilization to avoid social disapproval, you should know that all of history will curse you for your cowardliness - Alice Teller

If John of Patmos would browse the internet today for half an hour, I don't know if the Book of Revelations would be entirely different or entirely the same.

I wonder if it would mean a revival of the Hobo symbols:
Even into the 1970s when I was a kid some of these symbols would pop up on our sidewalk or trees or utility poles by our house, and we would get down on their luck people seeking aid. The older neighbors told us that the previous owner of the house, a well off widow always fed the hobos.

__________________If you surrender a civilization to avoid social disapproval, you should know that all of history will curse you for your cowardliness - Alice Teller

If John of Patmos would browse the internet today for half an hour, I don't know if the Book of Revelations would be entirely different or entirely the same.

I doubt any of you have read the late Phillip Bonosky's semi-autobiographical novel Burning Valley.

Bonosky was the son of a Duquesne steelworker and himself worked in the Duquesne steel mills before WW2.

His depiction of class and poverty in pre-war America is heartbreaking. He wrote of a community of displaced workers (ejected from job and home for joining a union) living in the woods for lack of anywhere else to go. Looks like nothing much changes. Causes, maybe. But not outcomes.

I doubt any of you have read the late Phillip Bonosky's semi-autobiographical novel Burning Valley.

Bonosky was the son of a Duquesne steelworker and himself worked in the Duquesne steel mills before WW2.

His depiction of class and poverty in pre-war America is heartbreaking. He wrote of a community of displaced workers (ejected from job and home for joining a union) living in the woods for lack of anywhere else to go. Looks like nothing much changes. Causes, maybe. But not outcomes.

There was probably a stretch from post WWII to about now where that was not the case.

I look at these Union versus Owner/Businessman things on a case to case basis.

The Coal Miners had a very good case for unionization, from both a safety and job and wage protection standpoint. The coal mining "wars" from post WWI to mid 1920s were as wild or wilder than the WIld West. Mingo County, West Virginia wasn't called Bloody Mingo for nothing. There was open warfare that ended up being quelled by the presence of Federal Troops.

On the flip side, I can totally understand and support most of Henry Ford's stand against the United Auto Workers. Perhaps some of my empathy toward Ford was that in spite of becoming an industrialist, he remained an agrarian at heart.

__________________If you surrender a civilization to avoid social disapproval, you should know that all of history will curse you for your cowardliness - Alice Teller

If John of Patmos would browse the internet today for half an hour, I don't know if the Book of Revelations would be entirely different or entirely the same.

Certainly the conditions described by Bonosky were horrendous - akin to industrial conditions elsewhere at the time, I'm sure - and the descriptions I read of the Duquesne union battles, and employers' responses, were grim to say the least.

The flip side is Britain in the 70s when unions decided they ran the country and almost brought it to its knees with strikes and power cuts, and (perversely) ripped the guts out of British manufacturing at the same time, causing mass unemployment.

Even now the unions wield stupid power here politically. They hold a block vote within the Labour party and forced the election of a dubious and probably unelectable party leader (at odds with the candidate the party favoured) because they thought he would be the most sympathetic to them.

Next topic, perhaps of some interest for both U.S. and British members.

Secession. It is a word that has been imbued with more than the meaning of "to separate from"

The northern counties of Colorado want to separate from the state. Western Maryland wants to separate from it's counties on the Seaboard. Northern California and southern counties in Oregon think they would be better off split from their state.

And in Buchanan's column today I read that the Scots want to be an independent entity again. Or at least some of them do.

Buchanan, being an staunch old school Catholic gives a lot of attribution to Gay Marriage as one of the reasons that the counties in American States want to split. I don't think it is that much of a driver, but freedom, economic factors etc drive the desire. It is also a rural versus urban split. I think we're a country, once again, growing apart.

__________________If you surrender a civilization to avoid social disapproval, you should know that all of history will curse you for your cowardliness - Alice Teller

If John of Patmos would browse the internet today for half an hour, I don't know if the Book of Revelations would be entirely different or entirely the same.

What the Scottish Nationalist Party want is the oil money, which is dwindling. They want to kick our nuclear submarine bases out of Scotland (but probably not the revenue they generate). They want to still have a say in UK politics, and collect UK tax subsidies.

They want to play at independence but with somebody else picking up the bill.

1. The government doesn't run it's own EBT system? At least in the states affected, the system is administered by Xeorox. (the company most famous for photo copy machines). Is there a little, or a lot of corporatism, or crony capitalism going on here?

2. What if this wasn't a glitch. What if this was done to make the shutdown by the Feral Government seem worse?

Mike C. had mentioned the Declaration of Independence. What a lot of people know about it is the several paragraphs us that our Creator gives us certain inalienable rights.

What is left out or not emphasized is that it was a letter of secession. One might have learned in history or civics that it was sent to the King to say goodbye.

Rarely taught is the complete document, including the grievances of the Colonist against the King.

One could, if he or she wished, to read these grievances and come up with a curent application of the old grievances . Brings to mind the old saw about if you don’t know about history, it might repeat itself on your watch.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

__________________If you surrender a civilization to avoid social disapproval, you should know that all of history will curse you for your cowardliness - Alice Teller

If John of Patmos would browse the internet today for half an hour, I don't know if the Book of Revelations would be entirely different or entirely the same.

Perhaps my opening post seemed a little callous. But there is often opportunity to be found in tragedy. That isn't me advocating or approving of taking advantage of, or cheating people dealing with tragedy.

As I stated, If I was 22 again and a fresh college graduate I could envision taking a "Steinbeck-esque" journey, and perhaps I could write something of interest about it.

Going back to the modern day "Hoovervilles", I think that I would find a number of admirable people. These are people who are surviving on their own terms in what is for them a post economic apocalypse.

In my bumming around in the late 1980s I found that even in the economically flush times, there were still people that both by choice and happenstance were dispossessed, and footloose if not fancy free.

for a "crusader", it would be a good story to tell, perhaps to build awareness. But it's a topic that rubs raw for those of us with a comfortable existence. A lot of people don't want to acknowledge the amount of people that might be just out of sight, making a rough go of it.

__________________If you surrender a civilization to avoid social disapproval, you should know that all of history will curse you for your cowardliness - Alice Teller

If John of Patmos would browse the internet today for half an hour, I don't know if the Book of Revelations would be entirely different or entirely the same.

Nacia, in financial circles "blood in the streets" refers to a "crash" or negative period when stock prices are down for "almost everybody".

If you invest when blood is in the streets, then you are buying at a low price point and if those companies survive the monetary value should ncrease and you will profit. Often profit greatly.

Edited to add: During the "Great Stock Market Crash" of 1929, there were stock brokers who committed suicide by jumping out windows along Wall Street. There then was literally some blood, and other squished parts in the streets.

__________________If you surrender a civilization to avoid social disapproval, you should know that all of history will curse you for your cowardliness - Alice Teller

If John of Patmos would browse the internet today for half an hour, I don't know if the Book of Revelations would be entirely different or entirely the same.

Perhaps my opening post seemed a little callous. But there is often opportunity to be found in tragedy. That isn't me advocating or approving of taking advantage of, or cheating people dealing with tragedy.

As I stated, If I was 22 again and a fresh college graduate I could envision taking a "Steinbeck-esque" journey, and perhaps I could write something of interest about it.

Going back to the modern day "Hoovervilles", I think that I would find a number of admirable people. These are people who are surviving on their own terms in what is for them a post economic apocalypse.

In my bumming around in the late 1980s I found that even in the economically flush times, there were still people that both by choice and happenstance were dispossessed, and footloose if not fancy free.

for a "crusader", it would be a good story to tell, perhaps to build awareness. But it's a topic that rubs raw for those of us with a comfortable existence. A lot of people don't want to acknowledge the amount of people that might be just out of sight, making a rough go of it.

I think what you are trying to say according to me is that people are instinctively protective of themselves and others in the facce of tragedy. humans naturally cling to life.
it is a natural instinct. the more tragedies and the more people come together to stay alive. it is something we all do instinctively because life is what cherish the most. we ought to learn to cherish each other more instead and there will be no more tragedy.
tragedy is a faux pas a mistake that is often the core of many more tragedies.
once the human gets a taste of it he or she naturally veer towards as if it were the norms. what is one war? let' have another one is the idea of tragic.

__________________a lesson in
life is worth a sound
in pound
to remind us
it is expensive a fine
to have one
in mind is extensive

Nacia, in financial circles "blood in the streets" refers to a "crash" or negative period when stock prices are down for "almost everybody".

If you invest when blood is in the streets, then you are buying at a low price point and if those companies survive the monetary value should ncrease and you will profit. Often profit greatly.

Edited to add: During the "Great Stock Market Crash" of 1929, there were stock brokers who committed suicide by jumping out windows along Wall Street. There then was literally some blood, and other squished parts in the streets.

thanks Mohican. is that another word for the credit crunch?
this means 'blood on the streets'' is brought down on purpose to make more money out of those who work hard for it.
just another financial bumshell/embezzlement to get the banking system to pay out big lumps of money to those at the very top . I call it the the big boss/bro bonuses system pay out for when their hunger for notes strikes again. the big bad wolf bonuses pay out system. it is obvious bring down to bring it up again. the seesaw tactic.
one day it will hit the ground and it will never get up again. it is bound to happen. the laws of physics newton's apple isn'it?
funny it head its head before it hit the ground. It makes you think. It hit twice. that is ironic. had it hit once he would have missed it.
love it when science turns on its head. it 's magic.

__________________a lesson in
life is worth a sound
in pound
to remind us
it is expensive a fine
to have one
in mind is extensive

In any connotation I would use, Crash is much more severe that "Credit Crunch".

Crash indicates the general or total market has bottomed out, and the values of the Corporations behind the stock are then significantly devalued.

in any case a crash as we know it is driven. a force Is needed. like a piston it pushes down to a crash point. one has to pick up the pieces whilst the piston pushes up only to come down again sometime soon. it is machinery. man made. someone has to push the button is what I mean.

__________________a lesson in
life is worth a sound
in pound
to remind us
it is expensive a fine
to have one
in mind is extensive

I don't care who your targets are Mr C, just don't do it. Or I'll have to come down there to Brighton and sic Dolly on your arse.

It might not be a big deal for you but it's a fucking huge deal for me. My country's future is hanging in the balance so I'll not have either side disparaged by people whose lives wont really be that much affected.

Sorry to sound harsh. Anyway, I've said too much already and this is Mohican's thread not mine so I'm bowing out.

I don't care who your targets are Mr C, just don't do it. Or I'll have to come down there to Brighton and sic Dolly on your arse.

It might not be a big deal for you but it's a fucking huge deal for me. My country's future is hanging in the balance so I'll not have either side disparaged by people whose lives wont really be that much affected.

Sorry to sound harsh. Anyway, I've said too much already and this is Mohican's thread not mine so I'm bowing out.

Oh, you are welcome to comment in it.

__________________If you surrender a civilization to avoid social disapproval, you should know that all of history will curse you for your cowardliness - Alice Teller

If John of Patmos would browse the internet today for half an hour, I don't know if the Book of Revelations would be entirely different or entirely the same.